Find out about Computerworld's 100 Best Places to Work in IT program, including eligibility, survey contents, deadlines and more.

What do IT workers want? Fair paychecks, challenging work and ample opportunities for growth, for starters. Our annual listing showcases the organizations that excel at keeping their employees engaged and loyal with compensation, training and access to hot technologies. The report is published every June.

Nominations are now closed for the 2019 Best Places to Work in IT list. Our special report announcing the honorees will be published in June 2019.

Contacts

The FAQ list below answers many questions about participating in Computerworld's Best Places to Work in IT program. Additional questions can be emailed to bestplaces@computerworld.com.

About the Best Places to Work in IT program

Computerworld conducts an annual survey to identify the 100 best places to work for IT professionals. We invite Computerworld readers, PR professionals and other interested parties to nominate organizations they consider great employers for IT workers. We then ask those nominated organizations that meet our basic criteria to participate in our survey.

The employers in the Best Places list are ranked by company size: Large organizations have 5,000 or more U.S. employees; Midsize have between 1,001 and 4,999 U.S. employees; and small organizations employ 1,000 or fewer U.S. workers (keeping in mind that some companies may have a large global presence but only a small U.S. footprint).

To be eligible, organizations must have a minimum of 30 IT employees. Organizations based outside the U.S. must have a minimum of 300 total employees at a U.S. headquarters and a minimum of 30 IT employees at a U.S. headquarters. At least 50% of non-U.S. organizations' IT employees must be based in the U.S. We consider IT employees to be those IT workers who provide technology support and services to their own company -- or to multiple companies through their work at an IT service provider. Workers who would *not* be included are administrative support staff for the IT department, staff who work in communications or PR for the technology department, IT contractors, or those staff whose primary role is in product development for outside sales.

In most cases, we prefer to have the parent organization, rather than subsidiaries or affiliates, apply for the Best Places to Work in IT list. However, a subsidiary or affiliate may be eligible, providing that it stands out as a separate entity from the parent organization, with separate business functions, IT leadership and so on. A subsidiary may also be eligible to apply separately if its parent organization is a holding company. In those cases, the parent organization and subsidiary may be able to apply separately. We encourage organizations to complete the nomination form or contact us at bestplaces@computerworld.com, and our Best Places research team will evaluate the submissions on a case-by-case basis.

Organizations need not be nominated to complete the survey. Additionally, participating organizations must distribute an employee survey to a randomly selected sample of their IT employees as part of the survey process.

The Computerworld Best Places to Work in IT survey resides on a secure server, which prevents network transactions from being decoded, thus preserving the privacy of sensitive information.

Frequently asked questions

Survey requirements and eligibility

Does my organization have to be nominated to complete the survey?

No. Organizations may participate even if they were not nominated. In lieu of a nomination, please send an email to bestplaces@computerworld.com with the name and contact information (including email address) of the individual who should receive the company survey and other information; we'll take care of the rest.

Does the Best Places to Work in IT list include public companies only?

No. The survey includes private as well as public organizations.

What criteria must my organization meet to participate?

To be considered for our Best Places to Work in IT list:

Organizations must have a minimum of 30 IT employees.

Organizations based outside the U.S. must have a minimum of 300 total employees at a U.S. headquarters and a minimum of 30 IT employees at a U.S. headquarters. At least 50% of non-U.S. organizations' IT employees must be based in the U.S.

In most cases, we prefer to have the parent organization, rather than subsidiaries or affiliates, apply for the Best Places to Work in IT list. However, a subsidiary or affiliate may be eligible, providing that it stands out as a separate entity from the parent organization, with separate business functions, IT leadership and so on. A subsidiary may also be eligible to apply separately if its parent organization is a holding company. In those cases, the parent organization and subsidiary may be able to apply separately. We encourage organizations to complete the nomination form or contact us at bestplaces@computerworld.com, and our Best Places research team will evaluate the submissions on a case-by-case basis.

Who should complete the survey?

An individual familiar with employment statistics, benefits, policies and programs of your IT department and your organization should complete the survey. This could be a human resources representative, a CIO or corporate PR representative -- or a team of all of the above.

Survey contents and procedures

What does the company portion of the survey ask?

Our online survey asks about organizations' benefits, training and development, average salary increases, percent of employees promoted, turnover rates, and the percentage of women and minority employees in management in IT departments. In addition, we will collect information on each organization's hot projects, mentoring programs and a variety of benefits ranging from elder care and childcare to flextime.

What does the employee portion of the survey ask?

Which employees are considered "IT workers" in this survey?

Answers to the survey should be based on those IT workers who provide technology support and services to their own company -- or to multiple companies through their work at an IT service provider. Workers who wouldn't be included are administrative support staff for the IT department, staff who work in communications or PR for the technology department, IT contractors, or those staff whose primary role is in product development for outside sales.

What happens if I leave a question blank on the survey?

You can't leave a question blank if it is required. Many of the questions on the survey are required; the survey can't be processed if they aren't answered. Please answer to the best of your ability for questions with lists or options included. If any open-ended/text based questions aren't applicable to your organization, please indicate "NA" for "not applicable." If there is a question you can't answer fully given the format of the survey, you may briefly explain your answers in an addendum field that follows each survey section.

Organizations that withhold information used to rank the finalists will have points deducted from their ranking. Answers that are left blank or have unexplained N/As will be assumed to be 0 (zero).

Organizations must provide answers to questions related to data we run in our feature story and graphics in order to be considered. Please see below for the types of required information that are typically published in the report.

Can I save my survey and come back to it at a later date?

Yes. You will be able to save your partially-completed survey, and can save a partially-completed survey as many times as necessary. Please save your unique ID and password in order to re-enter the survey. When you return to the survey, you will be able to review/modify questions that you have already answered. However, we will continue to provide a printer-friendly version of the survey, and we recommend that you complete this survey, then enter your answers online.

How should I send my organization's information to Computerworld?

We accept company information from the online survey only. Please enter all data as accurately as possible. Provide organization name, location, Web address and other information, as you would like it to appear in print.

Can I get a copy of the survey to review before I go to the online survey and submit my organization's information?

Yes. A printer-friendly version of the 2019 Best Places company survey can be viewed here, for reference. We encourage participants to complete this version offline before filling out the online survey.

Will Computerworld provide us with a copy of our submitted survey?

Upon survey submission, Computerworld will email you a password-protected link to view your organization's survey responses.

Is there an employee portion to the survey?

Yes. Organizations will be asked to randomly select IT employees to complete an employee survey. Organizations may sample all of their IT employees, if desired, or a representative portion, as long as the following requirements are met:

Organizations with 1,000 or more IT employees will be required to gather completed survey responses from at least 15% of their IT employees.

Organizations with between 500 and 999 IT employees will be required to gather completed employee survey responses from at least 20% of their IT employees.

Organizations with between 80 and 499 IT employees will be required to gather completed employee survey responses from at least 30% of their IT employees.

Organizations with fewer than 80 IT employees must gather at least 25 employee survey responses.

Organizations will be asked to document how they choose and contact their employees to take the survey. This portion of the survey is separate from the main company survey and will be available in January 2018.

A third-party research firm will receive the employee responses via a secure server. Responses can't be linked to specific employees, but only to your organization overall.

May we review the employee survey?

Yes. A printer-friendly version of the 2019 Best Places employee survey can be viewed here, for reference.

Once we contact our employees about the survey and send them the link to the survey, what do we do next?

Computerworld will determine the minimum number of respondents required based on the total number of IT employees at your organization, as outlined above. Once you send the employees a link, Computerworld will keep you up to date as to the number of employee responses we have received. Organizations will be responsible for meeting that minimum requirement. Throughout that process, companies can contact bestplaces@computerworld.com for updates on the number of employees who have filled out surveys.

Do we have to explain whom we chose to participate in the employee survey?

Yes. Participating organizations will be asked to read and fill out a short form (to be provided in January 2019).

What reports will be available to us?

For organizations that complete both the company and employee surveys, Computerworld will offer a custom benchmarking report with the organization's results compared to the average of all 100 Best Places and to other organizations in its size category, as well as the organization's aggregate employee survey results. (Individual employee surveys will not be released.) Those reports will be available approximately one month after publication of the Best Places to Work in IT list, for a fee.

List publication and notification

When will the list be published?

The 100 Best Places to Work in IT list is published annually in June in both the Computerworld digital magazine and online at www.computerworld.com.

When can I find out if my organization is on the list?

Computerworld notifies the organizations that make the Best Places list several weeks in advance of publication. Computerworld's marketing group contacts winners to offer assistance with press releases.

Is there a timeline to which I can refer for survey action items?

Below is the 2019 Best Places to Work in IT timeline.

Friday, December 21, 2018

Nomination process is closed.

January 2019

The printer-friendly version of the Best Places company survey is made available on Computerworld's website. Nominated organizations receive an email with link to the Best Places survey from Computerworld by the end of the second week in January.

Monday, Jan. 14, 2019

Email rollout of employee survey information. Organizations that have COMPLETED the company portion of the survey will receive an email with a link to their organization's employee survey for distribution to selected employees. Organizations will also receive instructions on selecting a random sampling of IT employees as well as instructions on verifying the process used to select the employees and a sample cover letter.

Friday, February 1, 2019

DEADLINE: Best Places company portion of the survey is due to Computerworld.

Friday, February 22, 2019

DEADLINE: Best Places employee portion of survey is due to Computerworld. Letter that verifies employee selection process and cover letter is also due to Computerworld.

June 2019

Best Places to Work in IT list is published.

What information will be printed in the Best Places special report?

Computerworld tries to avoid printing information that an organization may consider competitive. The following information may appear in the digital magazine or online:

Organization name

Location

Industry

Website

Total number of employees

Total number of IT employees

Percentage of IT employee turnover

Percentage of IT employee promotions

IT training days

IT training budget

Paid time off after one year of service

Paid time off after 10 years of service

Percentage of employee’s health insurance premium paid for by the company

Information from a 300-word essay outlining what's special about your organization and IT department

Please note that overall IT budget and other sensitive information will not be reported. Such information will be used only in aggregate format or for ranking purposes.